The Outboard Motor.


Thoughts of using the outboard to get into a rocky harbour, possibly with a good wind blowing, remind me that the gear shift was a bit stiff the last time I ran it, so I brought it ashore for a health check.
Well, it’s suffering from a serious lack of exercise! But the main problem is that in about four weeks a ‘stiff’ gear lever has become a totally seized gear lever. It turns out that an oil seal in the gearbox behind the prop has gone. So has all the oil. To be replaced by sea water. The box, which consists of a pinion and two crown wheels, is scrap.
Fortunately I have got a spare in the form of another nearly identical engine, with a good gearbox, so I can swap them over. I’ve cannibalised that other engine before so it’s not quite complete. They’re both old Yamaha 4’s, a long shaft and a standard one. I use the long shaft on ‘Petra’.
Changing the bottom end of the shaft casing over was very easy. Two bolt behind the prop to remove the horizontal prop shaft, a circlip keeping the pinion on the vertical shaft, and two bolts to remove the gearbox casing. I wanted to check the water pump impeller while I was in there so I had to uncouple the gear selector rod and remove two bolts retaining the pump. All straight forward, and it went back together easily too!
The gear selector lever was now free and the engine turned over easily but I wanted to clean out the carburettor before starting it up as I knew I hadn’t run the fuel out last time it ran. (residual fuel in the carb partly dries and the oil content makes it very sticky.)
That done and the fuel lines connected up I discovered that the priming bulb in the fuel line wasn’t right. The valves are sticking. However, it seemed to be getting some petrol into the engine so I pulled the string and it started! Literally, first pull! Too good to be true I thought, and it was. The engine very soon stopped again. And started again. And stopped…… It looks like fuel starvation, possibly because there’s still air in the pipe due to the priming bulb problem. I’ll get a new one when next in town and take it from there.